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McLaren P1’s Nürburgring lap time

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Let the ‘Ring wars resume. McLaren has revealed to TopGear.com that its P1 has lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in ‘under seven minutes’ in the hands of chief test driver Chris Goodwin.

You can witness the 903bhp hypercar’s assault on the Green Hell in this shiny (and Very Dramatic) official video, available first here on TopGear.com.

But we know what you’re asking: exactly how far under seven minutes did the P1 go? Well… we don’t know.

McLaren has only revealed that the P1 ‘achieved its one remaining performance target’ - a Nürburgring lap time starting with a ‘six’ - that necessitated an average speed ‘in excess of 111mph’ around the 13-mile track.

We also know that the P1 hit its 205mph top speed on the Dottinger Hohe straight, and that the run was achieved on the P1’s standard-fit road tyres. But McLaren won’t say by how many seconds its car broke the seven-minute barrier.

There may be several reasons for this. As Ford’s performance boss Jamal Hameedi pointed out last month, there’s no such thing as an official Nürburgring lap time - nor even a universally agreed start-finish point - so McLaren may simply be protecting itself against the vagaries of ‘Ring record measurement.

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However, cynics might suggest it’s because the P1 failed to beat the 6m 57s lap time of its arch-rival, Porsche’s 918.

The truth, no doubt, shall out. And whatever the P1’s precise time, there’s no doubt a sub-seven minute lap is unbelievably fast. The Porsche 911 GT2 RS, for comparison, recorded a 7m 24s lap in 2010: the Ferrari Enzo went round in 7m 26s.

In the world of licence-plate-wearing production cars, only the 918 and a pair of only-just-road-legal Radicals have cracked seven minutes around the Nordschliefe.

And now the P1. Turn up your speakers, enjoy the video, and appreciate some seriously committed driving, especially that little hop through Foxhole around the 1m 20s mark. Erk. The precise composition of Goodwin’s man-satchels remains a McLaren secret, but we’re guessing a combination of race-grade carbon fibre and silicone carbide…

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